A piece of heavy equipment was used to topple two towers for Everett radio station KRKO, and the national Earth Liberation Front says their members are responsible.

But an FBI spokesman now says it appears that only one person was responsible for knocking down the towers.

And a neighbor who chased that man away from the scene with a shotgun through the predawn darkness says he saw the suspect escape down a riverbank of the nearby Snohomish River.

As the new information came in about the circumstances surrounding the tower toppling incident, the ELF continued to take responsibility for the destruction.

“Due to the health and environmental risks associated with radio waves emitted from the towers, we applaud this act by the ELF,” Jason Crawford, a spokesman for the North American ELF Press Office, said in a prepared statement…

…Crawford confirmed Friday morning that the destruction was the work of the ELF.

He said there is evidence that AM radio waves cause adverse health affects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.

KRKO’s additions to its existing towers in Snohomish were completed in February, allowing the station to boost its AM signal to where it could compete with larger broadcasters in the Seattle-Tacoma area. That’s when the complaints from neighbors over telephone interference began.

The Skotdal family also plans to build two 199-foot towers at the same site for a new 5,000-watt AM station that would cover Snohomish County on another frequency.

A hearing examiner denied a permit for the towers, based on claims that radio signals could be dangerous to humans. But the council voted to reverse the finding, saying it was based on shaky scientific evidence.